Struck Down

I have been struck down by the flu, and I think my older daughter might have it, too. The last time I had the flu was in 2001 and in my mind's eye, it seems like that bout was much worse than this one. I also think I recovered more quickly. It's Friday and I've been sick as shit since Monday, and the doctor at Generic Urgent Care Center said I would be contagious through the weekend. I had gone to my doctor on Wednesday, where he glanced at me and promptly told me I had bronchitis. An easy and likely enough diagnosis, being that I smoke, but according to the doctor yesterday, a misdiagnosis. As much as I like getting a quick appointment with the old Cannuck, I guess it's time to switch doctors.

We don't do flu shots. I have never done flu shots and this round of flu-ness won't change my mind. I'm suspicious of all of these vaccines, and it's not required by law for my children to attend school. I think that there's something to be said for allowing our bodies to develop their own defense mechanisms, and besides, the flu shot is generally only good for one or two strains of flu, and by the time the flu makes it around through my job, the elementary school and before-and-after school care, who knows what kind of convoluted strain I'll end up with. End result is that I could get the flu shot and still get the flu, so why bother with the shot? Maybe my body worked up such an awesome immunity from the last bout of flu I had that it kept me flu free for the past ten years.

Of course, the vaccines that I would gladly take haven't been created yet. I would gladly take vaccines for tuberculosis, Hepatitis C, HIV and cancer, not because I'm out there randomly having unprotected sex in crackhouses while I snack on lead paint, but because all of those things aren't so easily heal-able. But they don't have vaccines for that stuff yet, and prefer to funnel millions of dollars each year into flu vaccines that are only good for one year and that don't even work against all the different strains of the flu.

Now that I've been up and moving about for the past several hours, I'm actually feeling more human than I have since Monday, even though I'm not completely up to snuff yet. The weather is warm and a slight breeze is blowing, so I've thrown open the windows to blow the bad sickness stuff out of my house and hopefully bring in some healthy springtime stuff that will blend nicely with the Mountain Scent Lysol I'm spraying everything down with. I have a little residual dizziness, but I'm not sure if that's a lingering effect of the flu or chemical inhalation. My older daughter is camped out on the sofa watching TV and I plan on camping out on the other sofa with a couple of books, and we'll have a nice relaxing day. With the flu.